FC Cincinnati head coach Jaap Stam isn't under any illusion about the state of his team's on-field product, despite talk of general progress thus far.
That progress has only netted FC Cincinnati four points in the standings from a possible 18 and means FCC is again looking up at every club in Major League Soccer entering the current international break.
Stam conveyed the team hasn't been good enough during a Thursday news conference at the Mercy Health Training Center in Milford when he was asked to reflect back on Saturday's 1-0 loss to the New England Revolution.
The team's performance in defeat was one that showed a higher level of play than the club's consistently seen since it joined MLS but Stam said that, with exception to a single period of about 15 minutes of convincing attacking play against the Revolution, he still wants to see better.
"I'm not happy about it to be honest because I think even in the first half, we created a couple of very good opportunities to score ourselves and we didn't," Stam said. "(Jürgen ) Locadia, Brenner (Souza da Silva) was there as well. We had a couple of shots where we could have done better at the edge of the box. They were very clear chances. If you look at the game in how they created their opportunities, more or less, they got opportunities from ourselves and losing the ball and them coming out very quick and taking over the attack, so a lot of things have got to do with our carelessness on the ball to give it away too quick because then, if you do that, you know that the opposition (and) every team in the league have got the ability to, in transition, be dangerous. That's what you've seen."
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New England waited to pounce on an FCC error in taking the late win at TQL Stadium.
Carles Gil, whose MVP candidacy is growing, served up a free-kick that Adam Buksa thumped home via a headed shot in the 70th minute.
The free-kick resulted from a Cincinnati foul on the left-hand edge of its penalty area – a dangerous part of the field to give fouls away.
The resulting goal consequently undid a scrappy albeit unrefined performance that saw FCC close to taking points from New England (5-1-2), the current Eastern Conference leaders.
The defeat was FC Cincinnati's last taste of action as a collective for three weeks. The club won't play again until it hosts Colorado Rapids on June 19 for what's scheduled to be the first TQL Stadium match at or near full capacity since the venue first opened in May.
Between now and then, FC Cincinnati is mixing in meaningful training sessions with some extended periods of rest.
The club decamped from the Mercy Health Training Center on Thursday until next week. The players won't train Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Stam said he was likely to continue working through the weekend and indicated the practice sessions staged this week were involved and necessary given the current run of form from FCC.
"As much (work) as we can to be honest because I have the feeling we still need to do quite a bit," Stam said, "and it doesn't mean the things that we've done before are not good enough or not sufficient enough but the thing is that we still see that we need to improve in certain areas. We still need to create better partnerships on the pitch as well and understandings, so we still are working quite a lot this week and next week and the week after for the Colorado Rapids."
Ronald Matarrita update
Ronald Matarrita, FC Cincinnati's assists leader (three), didn't join Allan Cruz and the rest of the Costa Rican men's national team this week after he suffered a calf injury in the New England match.
Matarrita didn't train with the club Thursday, which marked a three-day absence from practice for him.
Stam shed some more light and context on the nature of the injury, saying Thursday that "Mata" suffered the calf injury in the first half of the New England match.
Matarrita played on with the injury and eventually completed the full game.
Matarrita has played every minute of the season so far for FC Cincinnati. He's quickly proven himself to be one of the most productive acquisitions in club history as his three assists are the most by an FCC player since 2019 and brings him into a four-player tie for the second-most assists in a single season in the club's MLS era, which is two-plus seasons long at this point.
Roland Lamah, Kekuta Manneh and Darren Mattocks all had three assists during the 2019 season. Emmanuel Ledesma had five assists that year.
Adrien Regattin, who departed the club partway through the 2020 season, had a team-high two assists last season. He played in just 10 matches prior to his and the club's decision to mutually end his contract in September.
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